Travel plan

This shows the flights I have booked. Bit of a strange route, it looks like it would make more sense to start in Japan and travel down Asia to Malaysia and then on to New Zealand. However, I wanted to get to NZ before Winter. The trip is basically three legs, the first in South East Asia:
The blue arrows show flights, the black lines are the potential overland routes. The first flight is to Cambodia, where I'm planning to spend some time at the Ankor temple sites and then travel to Vietnam. Vietnam looks like a long, long country. There are tons of motorbikes and little in the way of road rules. I'm travelling North, making a few stops (probably at Hoi An, for instance), and I'll probably be in Hanoi (the capital) for Christmas. After that, I'm planning to fly into Laos and stay around Luang Prabang for a bit (flying rather than taking the 24hr+ bus journey from Vietnam!). I need to get back into Thailand for the next flight, so I'll probably cross over at Chong Mai (probably spelt that wrong) and travel down to Bangkok via train, stopping at a couple of places (like the old capitals, Sukothai and Ayyuthaya).

After that, I haven't planned much, so I'll save that for the next blog. New Zealand I might do a bit of work, and I definitely want to do some hiking. Japan I'll visit a couple of cities and maybe stay in a Buddhist temple. I want to get to China via South Korea, and visit Beijing and Xi'an, finally getting to Hong Kong. That's as much as I want to plan really.

Rob